Friday, January 5, 2018

January 05, 2018 - No walk in the park.

Everything soaking wet yesterday and the whole morning today.
It was already after 13h when I finally went to the forest after seeing the first signs of dry spots on our home terrace.

I was little bit too optimistic, because when I arrived on the top of 95.2, everything was still wet.
Stubborn or driven as I can be, I continued on to the Gros Sablons area and walked through it all the way to the boulder with "Hurlement" in the far end on the top of the hill. I can assure you that, packed with a big Mondo crashpad on the back, it wasn't quite a walk in the park!

It turned out to be all in vain, because not one single boulder was dry enough to be climbed safely.
I had almost given up on finding anything dry enough, but decided to stop by 95.2 again to see if anything had dried in the meantime.

One of the only interesting boulders that were dry enough, was "Indestructible" on the top of the hill.
I had done it already a few times and even had it on video, but as it didn't look like there was anything else and I was eager to climb after such a long walk, I unpacked.
Out of a habit, I installed the camera, went for it and sent it first go.

Fontainebleau - 95.2 - Indestructible 7A+(7A) (repetition)




On my way back to the car, when I was about to pass the boulder of "Nuit Debout", I decided to have a look at it.
The holds under the steep overhang don't get wet quickly and from the path, the boulder looked dry.
To my pleasant surprise, it was dry enough and I started trying the last variation I still had to do on this boulder, "Nuit Debout (direct gauche)".
Same hard start as for "Nuit Debout (direct)", a huge move from blocking a crimp left hand to a very far tiny crimp right hand, but dyno left to a sandy slopey hold from two tiny crimps.

I still remember that when I did "Nuit Debout (gauche)", I had to avoid using a small very fragile crimp above the sandy sloper, because it looked like it could break any moment when applying force to it.
In the heat of the battle today however, I forgot about it, used it with full force, upon which it broke and I made a hard fall on the ground, next to the big Mondo. Oh the irony to realise I had been carrying it around for  hours and then falling next to it. Yeah well, can happen.

Anyway, I still finished it off, but this definitely was no walk in the park and rather go for the 7B+ if I were to decide on the grade.
Very nice problem!

Fontainebleau - Roche au Four - Nuit Debout (direct gauche) 7B(7B+)


No comments:

Post a Comment